Tag Archives: Motor Carrier

For just over a year UDOT leadership has been recognizing our great employees by presenting them with a Silver Barrel Award. The following employees have been the recipients up until now and deserve our appreciation.

What makes a great leader? We’re lucky here at UDOT because we have many individuals to turn to for inspiration but today we honored one in particular. “A leader, a lot of the time, isn’t the person who thinks of them self as a leader, but they act that way and it is a natural attribute. A leader sets a vision, sets a goal and then they focus on the people to see how to make them successful,” Interim Director Carlos Braceras explained. One such leader is our 2012 Leader of the Year Tamy Scott.

Tamy was joined by her husband and UDOT leaders to celebrate being named 2012 Leader of the Year.

Tamy has been with the Motor Carrier Division for 27 years and has been supervisor of the Investigator Unit for the last seven. Tamy supervises nine employees, in both Salt Lake City and St. George, who are responsible for ensuring motor carrier safety regulation compliance.

You might think that it is difficult to supervise employees in different parts of the state but Tamy has found ways to keep her team a cohesive group. This is demonstrated by their willingness to help one another out, “it is not uncommon to witness several individuals helping with a large carrier review or when someone has had personal challenges and has fallen behind,” Tamy’s nomination acknowledged.

Tamy is not just a supervisor with her team, she is also willing to do the jobs she asks her employees to do. Most of her time with the Department has been with the safety investigation area so she understands the important role this group has. “She is willing to do the work herself and allow [her employees] to watch and learn.” She also uses this one-on-one interaction to develop future training for the group.

Her selfless leadership style was exemplified in her remarks following the leader of the year announcement. “I’m humbled by this,” Tamy began. “The motor carrier team has made our division look so good and the investigators work so well together and I’ve had such good leaders in front of me.”

A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of nominees for employee of the year and you know what helps employees succeed? Great leaders! Tomorrow we will honor the following individuals and announce the 2012 Leader of the Year. The nominees include:

Dan Betts — Region Two Maintenance

Jared Duke — Region Three Maintenance

Brent Laulusa — Administration Comptroller’s Office

AJ Rogers — Region Four Maintenance

Tamy Scott — Operations Motor Carrier Division

Rodney Terry — Region One Project Management

Katy Warren — Project Development Preconstruction

Congratulations to all of these nominees, we appreciate the example you set everyday.

It is spring and here at UDOT that means we have an opportunity to honor a few of our great employees. These individuals have been nominated by their co-workers and selected by senior leaders to receive recognition for their truly fantastic efforts. One individual will be selected as our Employee of the Year which will be announced Tuesday, March 19. And, the nominees are:

Adam Anderson — Operations Motor Carrier Division

Kristi Barney — Administration Comptroller’s Office

Marci Brunson — Region Four Administrative Services

Jim Harris — Region One Roadway Maintenance

Dave Kelley — Region Two Maintenance

Mike Romero — Project Development Structures Division

Kristi Urry — Systems Planning and Programming Program Financing

Clayton Weaver — Region Three Construction

If you work with any of these folks, or just happen to run into them, be sure to pass along your congratulations. We are lucky to have them as part of our Department!

Vic Saunders, Public Involvement Manager in Region One sent this great story about Leona Dalley, supervisor at the Perry Port of Entry. I want to meet this wonder woman. She works hard at her job, understands her important role and takes on challenges with enthusiasm and a smile. But, where’s her cape? You go, Leona! CH

“I protect the state’s highways.” That’s quite the personal manifesto, and I’ve thought about it many times since I spoke with her. But you can tell by spending any time with Dalley that she means exactly what she says.

Leona Dalley protects state highways by making sure trucks play by the rules.

An 18 year veteran of the Utah Motor Carrier (UMC) Division of the Utah Department of Transportation, Dalley’s nomadic career path has taken her from the bottom of the state to the top, down to the middle and back to the top again. She served at Ports of Entry in Kanab and Echo, before moving to the UMC headquarters in Salt Lake City. Finally, she snagged her present post as Supervisor of the Perry Port of Entry, a spot she has very ably filled for the past 11 years, and you can tell by the twinkle in her eyes that it’s a job she really believes in.

“We protect the physical capabilities of our state’s highways to facilitate commerce,” she explained one afternoon this past summer, as we watched a steady parade of interstate and local commercial trucks stream across Perry’s scales. “Transportation, these highways, is really important to the economy of this state and this country.

“And, I just don’t see that changing any time soon.”

A lot is being written these days about railroads taking back the millions of gross tons of freight lost to trucks in the 1950s with the advent of the Interstate Highway System, which continued right on into the 1960s and `70s. The Staggers Rail Act, passed by Congress in 1980, deregulated the American railroad industry and opened the way for all that freight to begin moving back to the rails. But, with the railroads needing major rebuilding of their infrastructure before such a shift could ever occur, trucks have continued, for the time being, as the primary hauler of America’s goods.

This makes Ports of Entry, like the one on I-15 in Perry, all the more important in making sure those trucks play by the rules as they roll down the highway. But doesn’t the sheer crush of truck after truck seem overwhelming to Dalley and her staff? “Oh, there are challenges, no doubt about it,” she said.

“We have budgetary challenges and the challenges of the constant change in the trucking industry. We are challenged to maintain the manpower we need to efficiently operate this facility,” she reflected. “I have a great crew who work very hard, and every one of them cares so much about the job they perform and the things they do each day.”

Like making thousands of snap judgments on the fly. All day long, as the trucks roll by their glass-encased control room, the Port of Entry staffers make snap judgments again and again regarding the “look” of the loads they see. Trained eyes notice something amiss here, a little “heavier than should be” weight there. A push of a button and the dreaded red light flicks on the status board over the roadway, along with a message to the driver to park and come in for a chat.

Some of these trucks have been on the road a while, and drivers can

Truck drivers and UDOT staff inside Perry’s Port of Entry

get a little chapped when they’re asked to park and shut down their rig, and lose valuable time. Emotions may run high at times like this, but Dalley says she and her staff are committed to handling each situation as honestly and straight-forwardly as they can.

“One bad experience by a trucker or shipper at this port affects driver interactions with every other port in the state,” she explained. “So, at this Port of Entry, we have made it our policy to conduct ourselves professionally, no matter what, or how something may be said to us.”

“That can be very hard to do sometimes, especially with those operators we see on a regular basis. They don’t always understand why we won’t just ‘give ’em a pass this time.”

As the non-stop river of trucks flowed by, I asked Dalley how the Ports of Entry can possibly keep up the pace. She said new technologies, such as “PrePass,” certainly streamline the flow of trucks.

PrePass is an electronic system that automatically verifies safety, credentials, and weight of commercial vehicles at participating Ports of Entry, weigh stations, vehicle inspection and agricultural interdiction facilities. Cleared vehicles are able to roll past these facilities at highway speeds without stopping. Dalley said this means greater efficiency for shippers, improved safety for motorists, and survival for her.

“We process over 10,000 trucks per day here, and without technology like PrePass, there is just no way we could get all of the trucks on the highway through,” she explained. “It’s really a great sorting tool, allowing qualifying carriers to proceed down the highway. Then we can spend our time on those that need a closer look.”

When she must take a driver “out of service” for any reason, Dalley says it’s always a big decision. “We understand the difference between being ‘carrier-friendly’ and being professional,” she noted. “Sometimes drivers don’t like this decision and they get a little put out by it.

“My staff and I have been trained well and we know what to do,” she continued. “We take care of each other, we back each other up. But above everything else, we stay professional about it and do our job.

“We always do our job.”

As I wrapped up the interview, I thanked her for her time and headed for the door. But she wasn’t finished with me yet. Leona Dalley just could not resist taking one more opportunity to remind me about the importance of her job.

“We work very hard to protect the safety, protect the infrastructure, and facilitate commerce on our state’s highways,” she said. “We say that to ourselves everyday when we report to work, and we really believe it.”

“I go home from this job knowing that I’ve done something really good today,” she said positively.